John Cassian

Mm.

And so, um, so he's the originator, and he's also was the great influencer of, Paula, your favorite, John Cassian.

[laughs] John Cassian, yes.

Who, who's John Cassian, right?

Well, yeah, that would be my next question.

Yes.

He's my guy.

Yeah.

More positively, one of the things that, I think I mentioned this, that keeps striking me is the way that authorities are being put together in different ways.

For example, this conception of the law of nature seems to, on one hand, refer back to people like Augustine, on the other, to the thought of people like John Cassian, but to put them together in a way I've never found anywhere else.

And apart from being interesting and delightful and thought-provoking in itself, I think one of the things this does is it's very helpful in making the old familiar sources which we think we know strange to us again, because things are being understood about them which we're-- are not the things we intuitively get from them.

And so it's not just about adding information that's lacking to this larger conversation, but it seems to be helpful in uncovering aspects of the conversation that are already there that are hidden to this point.

Aquinas ranked masturbation among sins against nature below sodomy.

And then monastic writers like John Cassian, and later confessors, paid attention to it because it violated vows of chastity, which I get, right? If you're like, "Look, I'm not gonna do anything sexual." Yeah, then don't do it.

But, like, that's-

Yeah

The church fathers, never countenancing the idea of drunkenness, argue for a spiritual application here.

Fifth-century ascetic John Cassian is typical of their approach.

"What Solomon means is this: To those who are filled with bitter regret and sadness over their earlier lives, give abundantly the joy of spiritual knowledge like a wine which gladdens the heart of man.

Warm them with the headiness of saving words, lest they sink into gloom and deadly despair." The spiritual point here is sound, but I do suspect the words of King Lemuel's mother meant that when you were dealing with the dying, then a drug that dulls the senses, as wine does somewhat, is fitting.

The desert fathers and mothers, Christians who sought God in the deserts of Egypt and Middle East, used short, repeated prayers to recollect their minds and turn their hearts towards God.

John Cassian, writing in the early 5th century, recommended the words of Psalm 70, O God, come to my assistance, O Lord, make haste to help me.

In the Eastern Christian tradition, this same instinct found expression in the Jesus prayer, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.

These prayers are short, but they are not shallow.

And one of the earliest writers, I had to write this down because I'm not going to remember all this, but one of the earliest writers to develop this idea was a Vagarius, probably saying that wrong, Ponticus, who listed gluttony among the evil thoughts that became root patterns of sin.

And later, John Cassian, I kind of said this earlier, brought...

These ideas to Western Christianity and then Pope Gregory the Great refined them into the list that eventually became the seven deadly sins.

So they weren't saying that food is bad.

So, I mean, there's a number of people throughout church history who've brought together contemplation and action.

And so John Cassian, Benedict of Nursa, these are some of those old people from thousands of years ago, but they were bringing both together.

And it inspired me to think this can be done.

It doesn't have to be one or the other.